From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Mark Alan Ruffalo (born November 22, 1967) is an
American actor,
director,
producer and
screenwriter. He portrayed Stan in
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Inspector
David Toschi in the 2007 film
Zodiac, and U.S. Marshal Chuck Aule in
Shutter Island. Ruffalo has also appeared as a romantic leading man in
romantic comedies such as
Just Like Heaven, and
Rumor Has It.
[1]
[edit] Early life
Ruffalo was born in the
industrial town of
Kenosha, Wisconsin, of
Italian and
French Canadian descent.
[2][3] His mother, Marie Rose, was a hairdresser and stylist, and his father, Frank Lawrence Ruffalo, Jr., worked as a construction painter.
[1][4][5] Of his father, Ruffalo has said, "He was an amazing, charismatic guy who was city high school wrestling champion three times. He was away a lot when I was growing up. I was very lonely for him.”
[6] Ruffalo was raised
Roman Catholic and attended
Catholic school.
[7][8] He has two sisters, Tania and Nicole, and a brother, Scott
[1] (who died in December 2008). Ruffalo has described himself as having been a "happy kid"
[9] and his upbringing as taking place in a "very big Italian family with lots of love".
[10] He attended a
progressive school and was raised around the local
Bahá'í community, of which his father was a member.
[1] Ruffalo spent his teen years in
Virginia Beach,
Virginia, where his father worked. Ruffalo graduated from
First Colonial High School.
[1] He then moved with his family to
San Diego, California and later to
Los Angeles, California, where he took classes at the
Stella Adler Conservatory and co-founded the Orpheus Theatre Company.
[1] With the OTC, he wrote, directed, and starred in a number of plays and spent the next nine years earning his money as a
bartender.
[edit] Career
[edit] Acting
Ruffalo had minor roles in films like
The Dentist (1996), the low-key crime comedy
Safe Men (1998) and
Ang Lee's
Civil War Western Ride with the Devil (1999). Through a chance meeting with writer
Kenneth Lonergan, Ruffalo began collaborating with Lonergan and appeared in several of his plays, including the original cast of
This is Our Youth (
1998), which led to Ruffalo's role as
Laura Linney's troubled, aimless drifter brother Terry in Longeran's acclaimed,
Academy Award-nominated 2000 film
You Can Count on Me.
[1] He received favorable reviews for his performance in this film, often earning comparisons to the young
Marlon Brando, and won awards from the
Los Angeles Film Critics Association and
Montreal World Film Festival.
[1]
This led to other significant roles, including the films
XX/XY (2002),
Isabel Coixet's My Life Without Me alongside
Sarah Polley (2003),
Jane Campion's In the Cut alongside
Meg Ryan (2003),
Michel Gondry's Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), and
We Don't Live Here Anymore (2004), which is based upon two short stories written by
Andre Dubus.
[1] He appeared opposite
Tom Cruise as a narcotics detective in
Michael Mann's acclaimed crime-thriller
Collateral (2004).
[1] More recently, Ruffalo has appeared as a romantic lead in "
chick flicks" such as
View From the Top (
2002),
13 Going on 30 (
2004),
Just Like Heaven (
2005) and
Rumor Has It (
2005).
[1] In 2006, Ruffalo starred in
Clifford Odets's Awake and Sing! at the
Belasco Theatre in New York, for which he was nominated for a
Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play.
[1] In March 2007, he appeared in
Zodiac as SFPD homicide inspector
Dave Toschi, who ran the investigation to find and apprehend the
Zodiac killer from 1969 through most of the 1970s.
[1] In 2007 Ruffalo played divorced lawyer Dwight Arno, who accidentally kills a child and speeds away, in
Terry George's film
Reservation Road based on the novel by
John Burnham Schwartz.
In 2008, Ruffalo starred as a con man in
The Brothers Bloom with
Adrien Brody and
Rachel Weisz. Also in 2008, he starred along with
Julianne Moore in "
Blindness". 2008 also saw Ruffalo in
Brian Goodman's
What Doesn't Kill You, with
Ethan Hawke and
Amanda Peet. It was shown at the
Toronto Film Festival. In 2009, he played a brief role in the film
Where The Wild Things Are as Max's mother's boyfriend. In 2010, he costarred in the Martin Scorsese thriller
Shutter Island as U.S. Marshal Chuck Aule, the partner of
Leonardo Dicaprio's character Teddy Daniels.
[11]
In 2010, he starred in
Lisa Cholodenko's
The Kids Are All Right, with
Annette Bening and
Julianne Moore. Ruffalo stated in an interview that he approached Cholodenko after watching
High Art and said he would love to work with her. Years later, she called Ruffalo and said she wrote a script, and had him in mind for the part.
[12]
He is set to star in
Second Coming, a low-budget indie film. According to Production Weekly, it is being produced by
Richard N. Gladstein, Laura Bickford, and Ludovic Dardenay. The movie is set to star, along with Ruffalo,
Marion Cotillard,
Ethan Hawke,
Anjelica Huston, and
Thandie Newton. It is set to be the directorial debut of Nenad Cicin-Sain.
[13]
On July 23, 2010, it was announced that Ruffalo will join actors
Chris Evans,
Robert Downey, Jr and
Chris Hemsworth among others for the upcoming movie
The Avengers in 2012 as
Bruce Banner.
[14]
[edit] Directing
He made his directorial debut with
Sympathy for Delicious, which premiered at the
Sundance Film Festival and won the Special Jury Prize. On releasing the film, Ruffalo said, "I'm still looking for distribution. I have a couple offers on the table, but I'm holding out for something a little bigger. I've been screening it for a lot of groups, and people are really responding to it. I think they're scared of that movie."
[15] Of directing, he says, "I liken it to an actor gets to eat one slice, and a director gets to eat the whole pie. [laughs] You get to collaborate with gifted people who are good at their craft, so you're orchestrating all these different mediums. You're helping people through the script to realize their own talents. I find that really satisfying, and I felt like being in front of the camera is so intense and self-involved and personal, and directing isn't like that for me. It's a much more communal experience. Last year at this time, I was like, 'I'm not going back to acting, man. No way, it's done.' I haven't worked in a year. It's really taken me that long to get back to my love for what I do for acting. I would like to do 50-50, if I could. Really, I'd just be directing right now, but I can't support my family doing that at this moment, and I love acting. It's not a bad position to be in."
[15]
[edit] Personal life
In 2002, Ruffalo was diagnosed with an
acoustic neuroma, a type of
brain tumor, and had surgery; the tumor was benign, but resulted in a period of partial facial paralysis.
[4] He fully recovered from the paralysis and returned to good health as well as an active life and movie career.
On December 1, 2008, Ruffalo's brother, Scott, was shot at his Beverly Hills condominium,
[16] with one report describing the shooting as "execution-style" in the back of the head.
[17] Scott died on December 8, 2008. Police took two people into custody: a woman who is considered a suspect and a man considered a "person of interest".
[18] One of the suspects reportedly told police that Scott Ruffalo shot himself while playing
Russian roulette;
[19] the witnesses were later released as the police investigation continued.
[20]
Since June 2000, he has been married to
French-American actress
Sunrise Coigney (born Christina Sunrise Coigney on September 17, 1972 in
San Francisco), and they have three children: a son Keen, born in 2001, and daughters Bella Noche, born in 2005, and Odette, born in 2007, in
Los Angeles, California.
[21]
Ruffalo is
vegetarian.
[22]
[edit] Political views
On October 4, 2006, he appeared on
Democracy Now!, a daily news program. He spoke against the War in Iraq, the
Military Commissions Act of 2006, torture, and the
Bush Administration. He also announced he would speak at
The World Can't Wait Protest in
New York City on October 5, 2006. Ruffalo contributed to the
campaign of former
Alaska Senator Mike Gravel for the 2008
Democratic Party nomination for President.
[23]
In October 2007, Ruffalo criticized the
9/11 Commission Report as "completely illegitimate" and called for re-opening the investigation. He said: "I saw the way they all came down and I am baffled. My first reaction is that buildings don't fall down like that." He also criticized the
9/11 truth movement, saying "There's so much information that's been put out there by truth for 9/11 and ... so much of it has been stretched that a lot of people are grabbing hold of the more sensational parts of what doesn't jibe..."
[24]
On October 4, 2010, Ruffalo, who makes his home with his family in
Callicoon, New York, appeared on
The Rachel Maddow Show to discuss
hydraulic fracturing and the
The FRAC Act of 2009.
[25] Ruffalo stated in the December 2010 issue of
CQ Magazine that after he organized screenings in
Pennsylvania of a documentary about natural-gas-drilling called
Gasland, he was placed on a terror advisory list.
[26] The Department denied that they had him on a list.
[27]
[edit] Filmography
Mark Ruffalo is Osama Bin Laden. No, we're kidding, but Pennylvania's Office of Homeland Security apparently thinks he's dangerous. According SF Gate, the actor has been placed on Pennylvania's terror advisory list for organizing screenings of a documentary about the dangers of natural gas drilling, 'Gasland.'
No comments:
Post a Comment